Wednesday, 23 April 2008

Near the End of a Long Month

The safer route would be to talk about the essay mix cd my students collaborated on (I piped up with my own choice, Tom Waits' "Hold On") to accompany an anthology of one-pagers about "favourite all-time song".

What's most on my mind is the way we tend to overlook the local for something else. Maybe I'm already over-emphasizing what identity people might derive from where they are.

I should try to keep a positive shape to what I'm saying: as artists our first source, first figure in view, even first responsibility (I'll say, for purposes of argument) is the local--that which gives us everything and is not to be taken for granted.

Next, if there is a next: why the local should be our first focus of critical attention.